The Laws of Moses in the Hands of the City Council

Herbert W. Schneider, who is no friend of Christianity, makes an interesting observation in his widely-used philosophy text, A History of American Philosophy (New York:  Columbia University Press, 1946).

Schneider observes, “as the New England church covenants gradually became secularized and were increasingly indistinguishable from the town ordinances, the `standing order’ (as the New England theocracy was called) was put on the defensive and resisted the growth of both political and religious individualism” (12).

Schneider's comment raises the question of what actually happened in those specific cases where Christians succeeded in governing themselves and others in the civil kingdom by legislating particular laws of Moses, as in the historical scenario Schneider describes above.  Could it be that when this happened another law raised its head--the law of unintended consequences? 

Fleshing out Schneider's point a bit may help to illustrate the fact that legislating “biblical” morality in the civil kingdom often serves to aid the process of secularization--the very thing those seeking to implement biblical legislation are trying to avoid.  There are four things we ought to consider in this regard.  Continue at Kim Riddlebarger

Famous German Homeschool Family, Persecuted for their Beliefs, Visits AiG

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post about a Christian family—originally from Germany—that had been attempting to home educate their children in their homeland. The family had asked for asylum in America because of the persecution they were facing in Germany (which included fines and possible imprisonment). A judge in Tennessee granted them asylum, but the Obama Administration has challenged the asylum ruling. In Romeike v. Holder, oral arguments were heard in a U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Tuesday about the Romeike family’s asylum request. While in the area, the Romeikes, including their six children, toured the Creation Museum on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Not only is the Obama Administration threatening to send the family back to Germany, where they may even face the loss of custody of their children, but what should also concern Americans is the possible precedent their case might set in the USA. For instance, lawyers with the U.S. Attorney General’s office implied during the oral arguments on Tuesday that the government can deny the liberty of parents to direct the educational upbringing of their children. While U.S. courts have generally been favorable to parents in regard to how they want to educate their children, including in their religious training, this current administration apparently wants to chip away at the rights that Americans currently have in home education. I blogged about this threat in a recent post.   Continue at Ken Ham

Attorney General Sues Florist for Refusing to Provide Flowers for a Same-Sex Wedding

Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington State is suing Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts for refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding. The owner of the flower shop, Barronelle Stutzman, says she is a Christian and cannot in good conscience participate in a same-sex wedding ceremony. Nevertheless, Attorney General Ferguson says the refusal is illegal and told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the following:

As Attorney General, it is my job to enforce the laws of the state of Washington. Under the Consumer Protection Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against customers based on sexual orientation. If a business provides a product or service to opposite-sex couples for their weddings, then it must provide same sex couples the same product or service.

So Ferguson is suing to fine Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts for every infraction of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. It would cost the company $2,000 per infraction. That means that, if enough gay couples were refused service, Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts could go out of business.

Robert Ingersol and Curt Freed are the gay couple in question, and they had been customers of Stutzman for over ten years. So the florist wasn’t refusing service to gay people in general. The florist simply didn’t want to participate in a same-sex ceremony. She describes what happened when Ingersol asked for her to provide flowers for his wedding:

He said he decided to get married and before he got through I grabbed his hand and said, ‘I am sorry. I can’t do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.’ We hugged each other and he left, and I assumed it was the end of the story.   Continue at Denny Burk

Forgive Us Our Debts

Chris Cox and Bill Archer have written an unsettling piece for the Wall Street Journal about the sobering reality of the US Debt. Though some may be familiar with the $16 trillion figure, there are few who realize that this is actually just the tip of the iceberg. According to the article, the true number is actually closer to $86 trillion (which amounts to 550% of our GDP). Cox and Archer argue that the government has gotten away with underestimating the actual price of our national debt since it has not needed to furnish the kind of financial documentation required of most businesses. “The actual figures,” they write, “do not appear in black and white on any balance sheet.” While the U.S. Treasury “does list liabilities such as Treasury debt issued to the public, federal employee pensions, and post-retirement health benefits…it does not include the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security and other outsized and very real obligations.”

The problem is that all the revenue collected for these particular entitlement programs is not actually being saved for the future, but is being paid out to current retirees. And this will all fall apart when more and more of our nation’s baby boomers start collecting retirement benefits. The government is currently borrowing 1 out of every 3 dollars that it spends, so what will we do when the majority of the boomers are retired? 

According to the authors, “Borrowing at this scale could eclipse the capacity of global capital markets–and bankrupt not only the programs themselves but the entire federal government.”   Continue at Shane Rosenthal

Driving the Churches Away

Earlier this week I posted a short article showing how the Toronto District School Board has chosen to effectively drive churches out of the public schools by pushing through a massive fee hike. In a city of small congregations and expensive real estate, renting space from public schools has long been one of the few affordable options for churches. Grace Fellowship Church of East Toronto, a recent plant of the church I attend, is faced with a 391% increase in the fee they pay to rent a gymnasium for their worship services; Grace Toronto, another local church with which we have a close association, has seen their fees rise by 142%, up to $192,000 a year for just four hours of weekly use. Many other local churches face similar circumstances.

At the time I wrote the article I asked for action and for prayer. Both must have happened in abundant measure!

I posted the article on Monday morning and by the next day I had been contacted by several local and national newspapers, radio stations, and television channels. I opted to direct all media inquiries to Julian Freeman and Dan MacDonald, the pastors of those two churches. In the few days since, it has been a thrill to see those men appear all over the news.

• CTV News covered the issue immediately and headlined their article “Churches scramble after school board raises rental fee.” They published another titled “Church stunned by major TDSB rental fee hike.”
• The Toronto Star published an article titled “School rental hike wallops small faith groups.”
• The National Post went with the long headline “Church groups see rent for meeting rooms spike as much as 400% as Toronto schools try to fill budget gap.”
• WORLD Magazine titled an article “Blatant Discrimination.”
• Christianity Today published a brief story titled “Toronto Churches Face Eviction As School Rental Fees Skyrocket”   Continue at Tim Challies

• See also: Questions the TDSB Is Not Answering

Don't Like Handouts? Neither Does the Bible

Many passages in Holy Scriptures implore rulers to treat the poor fairly.

It is only a slight exaggeration to suggest God measures nations largely by justice towards "the least of these." Is charity best dispensed publicly through a secular state or privately by churches? Does Washington really not do enough?

Despite the demagoguery trumpeted every election, America's rich pay almost all our taxes while the less fortunate are net recipients of government largesse. 

Washington's focus has shifted from defense and foreign affairs into social programs advancing egalitarianism. The federal government's primary endeavor reflects paying people not to produce.

Many assume these public initiatives represent biblical governance concerning the destitute but such passages were proclaimed under very different political and economic contexts. Americans take for granted that those without political connections can still acquire property, enjoy legal rights, access the ballot, testify in courts, and obtain medicine, police, fire and other protections.

However, throughout antiquity (and many places still), justice was seldom blind. Far more frequently the state pillaged the poor. Government didn't exist to protect all citizens equally, but to empower rulers as an instrument of plunder.

Might made right. Without defined constitutional parameters, justice generally reflects the whims of the powerful.  Keep Reading >>>

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HT to Seventh Sola

The Tragedy of American Compassion

Tragedy and Compassion – two words that we don’t normally associate together. How could compassion be tragic? While we likely have different levels of bad news in mind when think of tragedy, we are all in agreement that tragedy is bad and something ought to be done. Although I think the TV news industry is working hard to widen the definition to include hangnails.

Compassion is a bit more complicated. We tend to think of compassion from the same perspective that we think of love – the unbiblical, Greco-Roman emotional view. Americans view compassion today differently than we did 250 years ago. We want to “relieve suffering” but don’t stop to think about the proper way of doing this, or even if there is such a thing. There are some issues – life threatening, for example – for which rapid elimination of the threat is proper. But there are many life issues that are the accumulation of bad decisions for which there is no proper quick relief. We can look at G.W. Bush’s policy in the Middle East, thinking the solution there was to quickly implant democratic governments. People will not value the liberty a representative government of laws brings until they realize their need of it. Small children will not realize the value of math if mom tells them the answers rather than teaches and asks diagnostic questions.  Keep Reading >>>

Should Christians Try to Win Morality Through Legislation?

In our current culture, especially as we are heading into the next election cycle, moral questions are being hotly debated and people are looking to to political leaders to solve these problems. For example, perhaps the two mostly controversial subjects are the definition of marriage and the issue of abortion. 

Everyday, we hear news reports of organizations petitioning political leaders for changes to these laws. Everyday, state governments pass, or attempt to pass, a law that will define marriage as either traditional, being between one man and one woman, or redefining it to include same sex couples. Abortion laws continued to be hotly contested as states pass laws that require women be informed of a baby’s development or the use of ultrasound to show them the child. Yet, efforts to extend personhood rights are being denied due to political machinations. 

As we see cultural diversity, political correctness, pluralism, post-modern and secular humanism spread throughout, and erode, the culture, Christians rightly see the damage this does to the understanding of the word of God. Additionally, because these concepts demand that Christians capitulate their exclusivist position, which we are often unwilling to do, Christians are often seen as obstacles to unity within the culture. We recognize that the culture is moving to a point where Christianity could conceivably be seen as a threat. The further the culture takes this perception, the greater the possibility that one day Christianity could be outlawed. Therefore, Christians are rightly seeing a growing threat to the practice of our faith and, ultimately, the moral degradation of a country in rebellion to God.  Keep Reading >>>

Transforming Culture: A Pagan Ideal

Of late, there has been considerable discussion concerning transforming culture, world and life views, and the like by the neo-Calvinists/New Calvinists but what does that really mean when it comes down to it? What does one mean when they discuss transformation of society?
In the not so distant past, Judeo-Christian values (whatever they may be) held much sway in the West, especially in America. The Victorian ideals were decidedly a pan-Protestant view of culture and society holding to a general Protestant ethic. When this ethic was attacked or wavered from, the pastors and politicians raised the alarm. Cults and heretical bodies that try to spring up are allowed, but when the Mormons try to institute polygamy, the people are outraged and call for justice to be imposed (c.f. Paul Johnson’ A History of Christianity). While there is a general ethos of political civility when this ethic is adhered to, one cannot say the same when it comes to which actual doctrinal position will be followed by the general people. The ethic becomes the religion and the sincerity behind it (no matter the doctrine) becomes the litmus test, not only in civil courts but in ecclesiastical one’s as well. Continue Reading>>>

Pay Your Taxes But Trust in Christ

While Dever may serve a church on Capitol Hill, he does not commonly address issues of Christianity and government so directly. But as an expository preacher working his way through the Gospel of Mark, Dever obligated himself to address Jesus’ teaching in Mark 12:13-17. In these days of overheated rhetoric and protest rallies, I pray that evangelicals will set aside 70 minutes to listen to Dever’s sermon. Much of the wisdom expressed here echoes the forthcoming book City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, written by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, with a foreword by Tim Keller. We need to hear from the best evangelical thinkers about a faithful, biblical approach to politics. Perhaps I can help the cause by summarizing four pages of notes I scribbled from Dever’s sermon. Read it all HERE

Christians & Government

Christians and Government

Top Five REasons Not to Send Your Kids Back to Govt. School

Anyone who has kept up with my blog knows that I am no fan of government education. I have made it a point to carry The Continuing Collapse on a regular basis, and I try to make biblical, philosophical and theological arguments in favor of Christian education as often as possible. However, I recognize the obstacles those of us on my side of the street face. As many as eighty-five to ninety percent of professing Christians send their children to the government for their education. That is simply an astonishing figure considering the fact that the Christian community fought mandatory government education tooth-and-nail for it’s first fifty years of existence. Since then we have gone from fighting against government schools to fighting for them and implying that those who fight against them are fundamentalists, anti-intellectuals, and racists.


In the meantime, our schools grow progressively worse. Well, as we begin this summer, I want to appeal to those of you with children in government schools. Please don’t send them back! I beg you to consider what you are doing. As Dave Black has written:


No academic skepticism, no secularist authors, no blatant materialism can so undermine the spiritual life of the country like the completely secularized training of the child under the authority of the state... Bible-based education is mandatory for Christian parents. If we think we can keep our children in a secular school system and escape the dumbed-down, amoral, and immoral results of secular humanism in schools, we are sorely mistaken (emphasis added, see: http://daveblackonline.com/our.htm).


With that, here are the top five reasons not to send your kids back to government school next year: Read ON

Christians And Government

America Has Chosen a President

Living Soli Deo Gloria Under Obama